Wide Power Outage Traps Elevator Riders In Kyrgyzstan

Several dozen apartment-building residents in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, were trapped in elevators after regional power was shut down in the city, The Moscow Times reported on January 26. Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan, was hit by one of the biggest regional blackouts in Central Asia history. People were trapped for three hours or more in a shutdown that forced authorities to rescue many from elevators and ski lifts. The outage, which also hit the countries Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, caused many residents to cope without power or water. The outage also shut down subway trains and disrupted airline flights. Bishkek city officials said they evacuated at least 45 people from elevators, and emergency services rescued skiers stuck in chair lifts at the country’s ski resorts. About 500 emergency calls were made to city emergency staffers, but no major incidents were reported. The cause of the region-wide outage was not immediately clear, though some officials said the problem started in one of the neighbor countries. Bishkek power was mostly restored by the end of the day.